Head to Finland, the happiest place on Earth, where days can last three months

I’M sobbing my eyes out in one of the world’s coldest countries – a place that endures darkness for three months of the year. “Come to Finland,” they had said. “It’s the happiest place on Earth,” they had said.

Blubbing away like a toddler, it really doesn’t feel like it to me. These tears of frustration are due to my sitting on a bicycle in the middle of a forest and struggling to get uphill.

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OK, it’s been 20 years since I last tried shifting through gears on pedal power. But how hard can it really be?

Luckily Timo, my guide, swaps the manual wheels for an electric bike and soon I am breezing through stunning woodlands and along jaw-dropping Lake Saimaa.
With every passing tree, my spirits soar.

But the happiest place on Earth? Well, sure enough, Finland topped the recent World Happiness Report, in which 156 countries’ citizens were ranked according to criteria such as life expectancy and social support.

But how could that really be when Finns face -50C temperatures amid those long, bleak winters?

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I have gone to find out. My first clue comes early on my trip, when I do as the locals do and meditate on a flat rock overlooking the sea at Kivinokka, a recreational hub of beaches and summer cafes in capital Helsinki’s bay area.

Almost immediately, London’s daily Tube crush seems worlds away. As well as 24-hour darkness, Finland is home to the midnight sun.

After those long, harsh months, the sun then does not set at all between May and August, causing it to assume a wonderful reddish-yellow colour during “night-time”.

I enjoy that in the chic new Lapland Hotels Bulevardi in central Helsinki, followed by a breakfast offering specialities such as charred whitefish, smoked cheese, reindeer sausages and pate.

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Not wanting to upset Rudolph, Donner, Dasher and co, I opt for a granola with lingonberries and honey, plus malty Archipelago bread.  Those Finnish winters have led to a love of staying in and reading.

At the central library Oodi, I am blown away by a collection of more than 100,000 books, mags, newspapers, 3D printers, films and video games. It is a day-trip destination in its own right.

More simple pleasures await 45 minutes northwest of Helsinki, in Nuuksio National Park. A guided tour takes you along one of eight breath- taking nature trails, and you are encouraged to forage and taste herbs.

At the end, we make a herbal tea from our pickings. Another four hours north-east in Punkaharju, the scene of my bike drama, I stay in the newly modernised Hotel Punkaharju.

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It dates back to 1845, when Russian Tsar Nicholas I ordered a ranger’s lodge to be built. The magical, relaxing lakeside setting makes it easy to understand why ex-supermodel Saimi Hoyer moved back here to run the hotel.

I also visit Lusto, the town’s “Finnish forest museum”, swotting up on the country’s dedication to spruce, pines and so on.  As well as the “land of a thousand lakes”, Finland is a land of thousands of forests, with more than 70 per cent of its territory tree-covered.

And there’s more: I learn that Finland, as well as being home to Santa Claus, boasts the world’s cleanest air and has been ranked as one of the planet’s safest countries.

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At various coffee shops, I am further impressed to hear the natives drink more of the black stuff per person than anywhere else.  But most memorable for me is the fact that Finland has more than three million saunas — in a country with 5.5million people.

In Punkaharju, sauna veterans teach me to sit in there for five minutes before, gulp, running into an ice-cold lake.  But it is exhilarating, as is my entire Finnish break.

Afterwards, I can’t stop smiling for days.  No wonder everyone who lives there is so darn happy.

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